Hello,

I seem to have damaged a fitting on the steam boiler of my alex duetto II. I was following the descaling directions from coffee time, and removing the t-piece shown in the image below. When I went to put everything back together I had a steam leak from connection of the t-piece to the elbow on the steam boiler. I tried tightening the fitting, but that didn't help. I'm pretty sure I misaligned the brass compression fitting and there is no saving it. In the process I also over tightened the compression nut to the elbow. It won't hand tighten, and I think it's partially stripped.

I've ordered new copper tubing and compression fittings from Stefano's. But I'm sort of perplexed about how to remove the elbow on the steam boiler shown in the picture. I can't unscrew it because it won't clear the elbow (going to the steam wand) right next to it. Were these fittings screwed in, then braised on? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Ok, I was able to remove the fitting. I had to rotate the adjacent fitting to make room, but there was enough space. I could have sworn there wouldn't have been enough room before I tried it though.

Now my challenge will be to solder together a new t-piece and seal everything up nice and tight so I don't have any leaks.

These are my thought on this for whatever they're worth.

It should be done using silver braze, not solder. Requires a torch, possibly propane but better with MAPP. you will need a small amount of food safe silver solder and the proper flux. Make sure the surfaces are perfectly clean and dry before starting. Clean with a green Scotchbrite scrubbie, and soak in vinegar or citric acid and then rinse with clean water. Lots of flux inside and out and the instant it's soldered toss in a bucket of water so the flux comes off easy. Or that's how I used to do it. I didn't worry so much about clean because the parts I did only needed to be mechanically strong and I was doing piece work for $1.00 each. But if you do everything right, you get beautiful joints that are at least as strong as the base metal. Just mostly heat the T so you don't burn the flux and make sure the solder flows to the other side.

Ira